Wednesday, August 05, 2009

The Preyer Federal Building

The L. Richardson Preyer Federal Building/Courthouse, located at the corner of W. Market and Eugene Streets, is a gem of an Art Deco building from the 1930's. Preservation Greensboro has written extensively about the building, including its construction which took 12 boxcars of Mt. Airy granite and 55 train car loads of Indiana Granite. So many architectural details can be seen by walking around the building, carvings, lamp posts, art deco details. Carved into the façade are the words, "United States Post Office and Court House." Unfortunately, cameras are not permitted inside and, since it is a federal building, they are strict. Formerly, there was a post office, federal courts, and offices inside; now, the post office is gone but the courts remain.

On the day we were out taking this photo, one of the workers, outside waiting for a ride, talked about the beauty of the interior. "Why they still have the original marble dividers between the bathroom stalls. And, oh, you should see this one courtroom that has a detailed, gold painted ceiling. The building is just beautiful." We were touched by her pride in the building. We love the massive, solid look of this public building, constructed in the years of the Great Depression.

Comments

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Even before I read your text, I guessed it was a post office. Wow, a big building. Reminds me of the huge Chicago P.O. where I worked as a student one summer. We had to be fingerprinted and had to sign an agreement not to strike.
Thanks for the memories...

Bill: You are funny! Dina, great memories. What a brave young woman you were to work in downtown Chicago! Contrast your live then to now, out digging artifacts in Israel. I'll bet you have amazing stories to tell!

This is so cool. I took a picture of that building and if I use it on my blog I'll have to link back to this post so people will know what it is. I'm slowly but surely getting my computer back up and running after having to restore it to factory settings when the new power supply was installed.

Brave? No, Chicago was fine in the mid 1960s, at least during the day. I have a memory of the Post Office. We few kids lucky enough to get summer work there at high per hour pay were conscientious and fast workers. Trouble was, when the mail was all sorted (by hand!) by the afternoon, everybody was sent home for the day, including most of the old-timers, the regulars. One day we found a paper taped to our cubbyholes that said "Kollege kids." We got the idea and tried to slow down.